Missed this one!

[luckymucklebackit]

BBC News - 'Important' model railway collection sells for £74k at Cockermouth auction
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-65274446

Some nice items from the era I model, wish I had known in advance.

Jim

[centenary]

Cost £300,000, got back less than £75,000 less auctioneer's commission and VAT!

[Bigmet]

Model railway product is not a reliable investment opportunity. My own policy of not spending more than 40% of the new price for pristine s/h (and further reductions for poorer condition) is fully justified by that return on spend ratio of a quarter (the s/h retailer must make some profit).

[Richard08]

Can't help thinking that the boxes in good nick would have upped the total somewhat. Could be worse though, around four years ago No.1 step son was driving a skip lorry. Picked a skip up and took it back to base where it got gone through for anything interesting, metals etc. Before tipping he noticed a bit of track sticking out of a box and fished the box out. I get a call (this was before trainitis reasserted itself) asking if I can have a look. Certainly - interesting treasure. And what treasure - an exquisitely kit/scratch built 7mm WHR/Ffestiniog Garrett (can't remember which one), painted and lined 'perfectly' which ran sooo smoothly off a battery. Another one! But unlined. Some un-started kits, another unpainted Garrett, motors, wheels - narrow and standard gauge, water crane and so on. Just the one bit of track though. All completely undamaged. From a skip. Yay eBay! Young couple got grandads house when he died and just skipped everything - No.1 step son enjoyed the £800+ they threw away. The sad thing is there was likely to have been a lot more in that skip, but the sorter gets first dibs and wouldn't have realised. He would have just junked 'toys'. Hope those engines are still going, they had a lucky break. Probably cats in disguise.

[RFS]

I browsed the auction catalogue and was gobsmacked by the sheer number of locos. Must have been hundreds of Western diesels at least plus loads of others. Problem with an auction like that is there's buyer's premium to pay (here 36%) which will lower the bids, plus you have to pay whatever it costs to get your items from Cockermouth. Selling this amount of stuff in one auction effectively swamped the market which doesn't help. Plus it appears this auction house has never done a model railway sale before. There were no condition reports at all, and the Ts and Cs make it very clear that all items are "sold as seen". So you're taking a risk with any used item that it could be a non-runner.